by Darren Greer
By the end of it, we were exhausted. The sweat poured off both of us and June always stank to high heaven by the time we got back inside. “Jesus, June,” I told her whenever I got a whiff, “you smell like a dead polecat!”
June would always giggle at this, and say “I smell like a dead cat, right Bubby?” The nurses made her clean herself up when we got back upstairs, and they always admonished me for taking her outside at all, as if it was my idea to begin with.
“She could have heat stroke in temperatures like this,” they told me.
“I know,” I answered, and hung out with June in air-conditioned comfort until five o’clock when the nurses kicked me out. Then I went home to my own sweltering apartment and suffered through the night. Lying naked and sweating in my bed unable to sleep, I envied June her climate-controlled room with pictures of Minnie Mouse on the wall and her boxes of Kotex and Crayolas.
CXXXVII
June’s middle name was Lesley. In the seven months I had been visiting her no one had told me that, not even June herself. Perhaps she didn’t know what her middle name was.
June Lesley Greene came to the Sisters Who Gave Good Hope on August 9, 1984. Thirty years after the hospital had been taken over by the city, twenty years after the forced sterilization debacle, and still a comfortable number of years after the nurses and doctors figured out that the vaginal cavities of the retarded girls kept getting bigger because the men in the other wards were fucking the shit out of them. June, at least, was spared all that.
June’s first name was taken from the month in which she was born. June’s second name was taken from her mother’s favourite singer, Lesley Gore. June’s last name was handed down from a family in which at least one member was burnt to death in a garment factory fire in Three Rivers in 1869, and two more members hanged themselves — one in the bathroom of a house in a small town, and one in a Sally Ann treatment centre for drug and alcohol addiction.
Are you thinking what I’m thinking? I’m thinking the odds were stacked against June Lesley Greene from the start.
CXXXVIII
Excerpted from:
Big Panty Lane: The Three Rivers Stories by Cameron Dodds
In the summer, June and I spent most of our time in each other’s company. June was easy to fool but difficult to amuse, and I had no sympathetic audience in my mother when I would complain that June couldn’t keep the characters straight in any of our made-up games and was hopeless at marbles. In fact, the marbles were so pretty and fascinating to June that she sometimes swallowed them and, like a baby, passed them later on. I lost some of my best marbles that way, and when I ran inside to tell my mother she always said the same thing.
“You gotta go at June’s own pace. You gotta take June’s abilities into light. Your sister is special!”
For everyone else in our town, including my father, the word special as it related to people like June was a synonym for hopelessly retarded. But from my mother I always got the feeling that she meant it in the more literal sense. My mother, with a constitution of such strength as I can only imagine, often checked the toilet bowl after June ate the marbles I most cherished and retrieved them for me. But somehow those marbles, once cleaned and restored to my bag, were never the same. I could not appreciate them anymore knowing what they had just been through, knowing who they had just been through. Sometimes I gave them to June to swallow again; the second time I didn’t tell my mother where the marble had gone so it would get flushed down the toilet. But because June never learned to flush on her own my mother would sometimes see it anyway. There were marbles in my bag that had made the treacherous journey though my sister’s digestive tract several times before I finally gave up and fired them into the woods where June would never find them.
Sometimes we went for long walks, especially when my mother was in one of her moods. These were times when she could seem to muster no energy and sometimes could not manage to change out of her housecoat for the day or wash her hair in the sink in the morning. My father used to say my mother was moping, but even as a boy the word seemed much too mild to me. My mother was more morose than mopey. All animation, all the identifying marks of character, were stripped from her personality during these times. She would often sit for hours at the kitchen table in her housecoat, drinking cold tea and staring out the window at nothing. She was slow to respond to any request; June and I would be left to fend for ourselves when it came to getting breakfast or cleaning up. My mother, who usually helped June get ready and plan her day, would neglect her. I would be forced to go into June’s room, without any prompting from my mother, and help her wash and dress, get her breakfast when I got my own, and find things to amuse her all day. We would work around my mother as if she weren’t even there. She sat like stone at the kitchen table without any expression or hope. During these times even June had trouble maintaining her usual optimism.
“Mommy is sad,” June would tell me, moping somewhat herself.
We stayed out longer than usual when my mother was like this, sometimes walking the whole three miles down Big Panty Lane past the other few houses and trailers to the municipal dump. June and I were warned to stay away from the dump. It was municipal property and, besides, my mother was afraid we would cut ourselves on a rusty can and get lockjaw. Getting lockjaw from a bad cut, like the ocular restorative properties of carrots, was something that a lot of mothers believed in then. But on the days my mother was not her usual self, and there was no one to warn us or make any rules, I would sometimes take June to the dump to play anyway. Our favourite game was a form of house, where we would pull old chairs from the tree-high piles of garbage and cast-off furniture, and set them up around any old kitchen table we could find. Often our chairs would be missing legs or backs and sometimes seats, and we could not safely sit on them. But we filled the table with rusted teakettles and old tin cans and broken plates and bottles and chipped glasses, and pretended we were serving guests their dinner. Sometimes we would sit in the slashed leather seats of old cars and play with the steering wheel as if we were going somewhere. June always wanted to drive, and I would make up things for her to see on our imaginary trip.
“Look, June. There’s the Amazon River!”
“Look, June. There’s a mountain!”
“Look June. There’s the City Zoo!”
June would wildly attack the wheel, jumping excitedly up and down in her seat, and forget all about brakes and clutches and gear shifts and our mother’s depression. The two of us had never been out of Three Rivers County, and on those days we travelled the country of our imagination, going to places that I someday hoped to see — places that June would always be left, I supposed, just dreaming about. Occasionally municipal workers in the orange trucks would come along and chase us from the dump. At other times June and I would just get tired and want to go home.
It was while we were away on one of these afternoon trips to the dump that our mother went into the bathroom, knotted a pair of pantyhose she had taken from her dresser drawer, slipped them around the light fixture in the ceiling, climbed up on the toilet seat, and hanged the life out of herself.
My feeling has always been that my mother didn’t mean to do what she did. That when the spells came upon her she was no more in control of her behaviour than when my father was blind drunk on whiskey and passed out on the sofa in front of a blaring television. The moods just came on and she was helpless to stop them or control them. Once June and I came home to find our mother standing in the backyard in her housecoat staring up at the highest branches of the trees. Another time she had taken a pile of old papers, among them her marriage certificate, June’s birth certificate, and my own, and burnt them in the kitchen sink without a word of explanation. When my father came home the kitchen was thick with smoke. My father shouted at my mother when things like this happened, but she never responded to him or looked at him. It was like we were living with two separate people — one industrious and helpful and a good cook, the other this fright
ening wooden statue we couldn’t speak to or understand. It would have been no surprise to any doctor that my mother finally ended up where she did. People like her can go only so long before something gives.
Except that June and I were too young to understand this.
Except that June and I were forced to come home that day as any other day, expecting either of our mothers to be there. At any time she could snap out of it. We might leave with her staring out the window in her housecoat and come home to her fully dressed and asking about our day. When my mother finally came around, my father never mentioned how she was when he left that morning. Neither did we. We spoke to her as if she had been with us all along, as if it had been hours instead of days since she had last looked at or spoken to us.
At some point, I realize now, my mother had needed help.
In Three Rivers that kind of help didn’t exist. Not really.
And so June and I came quietly into the house, nervous about what kind of mother would be there for us today, to find her tea cup still sitting on the kitchen table and her nowhere in sight. Relieved I turned on the television in the living room and June went to use the bathroom, perhaps to pass more of my marbles. She came out saying that Mommy was playing.
“Where is she?” I asked.
“In there,” June said, pointing down the hallway to the bathroom. “Mommy’s playing.”
June’s face was a pale shocked moon. As dumb as she was, she didn’t believe that our mother was hanging from the ceiling for fun, but there was no other way for her to describe what had happened. She had no other words for it. I padded down the hall in my stocking feet and came upon my mother dangling from the light fixture, still wearing her yellow nightdress. I have seen this type of suicide portrayed over and over in movies. It is easily the most disturbing, most affecting death to throw up on the screen, and the depictions are always accurate. Her body, still in all other respects, rotated slowly towards me. I could not see her face because her head was hanging to her chest. But I could see her bare feet already turning a shade of purple, and her hands twisted into claws and starting to stiffen. All energy, all life, all identifying marks of character left me then too, as if my spirit had been hanged along with her.
By now June was screaming and crying in the living room. I just stood there, staring up at my mother, already starting to wonder what we could have done to deserve such a swift and fitting punishment as this.
CXXXIX
Enter the penis.
Dagnia/Julie had been trying to get hold of me at work for a week to no avail. They wouldn’t give her my home phone number and even if they had I wouldn’t have answered her call. Every hero goes through a period in which he gets a little beaten, when things aren’t going so well and it looks like the good guys might not win after all. This was my down-and-out period. I called in sick to work, took the phone off the hook, drank enough caffeine to energize an elephant and ate nothing nutritious. Juxta got used to climbing over piles of dirty laundry to get to her litter box in the bathroom. I ran out of money for cat food so I started feeding her cans of tuna from the human section of the cupboard. I had no clean clothes, and just looked for the least filthy items lying on the floor when it came time to decide what to wear for the day. A couple of times I took my dwindling supply of dollars and bought cheap whiskey, and woke up on the sofa with a hangover and Juxta curled up on my chest, brave soul. Mostly I wrote, locked the world out as if it didn’t exist and set my fingers to dancing over the keyboard. When I wasn’t writing I was dreaming about writing. When I wasn’t dreaming I was too drunk to do anything. I still checked my e-mail — those xxx sites and earn-a-college-degree unsolicited invitations. That’s how I knew Dagnia/Julie was looking for me. Somehow, she had gotten my Hotmail address, though I didn’t remember giving it to her.
CXL
Subject: Where the Hell Are You?
Date: Tuesday, 17 September, 2000 18:24:27 _0300
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
CC:
Dear Cameron: Where the hell are you? I’ve called your work and they finally told me you haven’t been in all week. (What a tight-lipped bunch!) So what’s up? Are you free for coffee sometime soon? Some urgent news re: your upstairs neighbour.
Regards,
Julie
CXLI
The great thing about e-mail is that you can ignore it easily.
CXLII
Subject: Re: Where the Hell Are You?
Date: Thursday, 19 September, 2000 8:02:56 _0300
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
CC:
Dear Dagnia:.
Fuck off. I’m busy.
Ciao,
Cameron
CXLIII
Subject: Re: Where the Hell Are You?
Date: Thursday, 19 September, 2000 10:02:56 _0300
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
CC:
Cameron:
Don’t make me come up there and pound on your door for a half hour! Call me, you little prick!
Julie
CXLIV
Subject: Re: Where the Hell Are You?
Date: Thursday, 19 September, 2000 11:15:13 _0300
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
CC:
Julie/Dagnia:
Go ahead. I can always stuff cotton batten in my ears. And why are you still using Dagnia Daley’s Hotmail address? Do you need more sections of the penal code read to you? More intellectual property rights? You are such a loser who doesn’t know she’s a loser.
CXLV
Subject: Re: Where the Hell Are You?
Date: Thursday, 19 September, 2000 13:23:07 _0300
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
CC: Cameron:
I’m worried about Dean. He hasn’t shown up at any of his regular haunts for the past two days, and my other spies tell me he isn’t looking that good lately. Can’t you go up and see him for a few minutes, just to see how he is? What if he’s lying there now, in his apartment, in need of help? Please, Cameron. I won’t bug you anymore. Just this once. PLEASE!
Dagnia.
P.S. About the e-mail. I have my own: [email protected]. You can use it if you prefer.
CXLVI
Subject: Re: Where the Hell Are You?
Date: Thursday, 19 September, 2000 14:15:44 _0300>
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
CC:
God, you’re a pain in the ass. No, I haven’t seen him. I told you I’m busy. Why don’t you just pick up the phone and call him yourself?
CXLVII
Subject: Re: Where the Hell Are You?
Date: Thursday, 19 September, 2000 14:21:36_0300
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
CC:
Cameron:
I told you, I can’t call him myself. He won’t answer if it’s me. If you go up and check on him, there’s another hundred bucks in it for you. I’m sure you could use it.
Julie
CXLVIII
Subject: Re: Where the Hell Are You?
Date: Thursday, 19 September, 2000 14:40:51_0300
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
CC:
What the fuck! I’ll check tomorrow. And drop the hundred off, cash, in my mailbox tonight. If the hundred’s not there when I get up tomorrow, Dean’s brain can rot right off its stem for all I care.
Cameron
CXLIX
Subject: Re: Where the Hell Are You?
Date: Thursday, 19 September, 2000 14:44:51_0300
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
CC:
Dear Cam:
Thank you! But a mailbox isn’t saf
e. Someone might steal the money. Meet me at writers’ group bookstore at 8:00 P.M. and I’ll give you the money then. And could you go see him tonight instead of tomorrow? I’m really worried, Cameron. I’ll await your answer.
Julie
CL
Subject: Re: Where the Hell Are You?
Date: Thursday, 19 September, 2000 16:51:00_0300
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Jesus, you’re creepy! I really think you should seek out some professional help on this one, Dagnia/Julie/Psycho-Babe. Tonight then. $100.00. 8:00 P.M. at BIG BAD BOOKS. If you’re late, I walk.
Cameron
CLI
Subject: Re: Where the Hell Are You?
Date: Thursday, 19 September, 2000 21:02:43_0300
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Dear Cameron. Thanks again for helping me. Remember, as soon as you know anything e-mail or call me. I’ll be waiting all night, so let me know as soon as you can.
Love,
Dagnia/Julie
P.S. You really looked like shit tonight. Buy a razor with some of that money, will ya?
CLII
Subject: Last Instalment
Date: Sunday, 22 September, 2000 14:00:27 _0300
From: [email protected]
To:[email protected]
CC:
Last Instalment:
More Funeral Marches for Dagnia
and Dean’s Supposed Hope